Project Dogs

[kato13]

ArmySGTs post with his wakeup cycle mentions a K9 chamber.

At what levels and frequency would you see dogs in your project?

I was thinking that in addition to specialty dogs (security, IED detection, etc) that first contact teams (covert) could probably use a dog. (Memories of the Road warrior might be pushing me in this direction)

If the project had expectations of teams functioning without much project support, I can see dogs being very useful as well. In my project there is an expectation that any team may wake early so they are designed to tough it out a bit more than the canon project. This could mean more teams have dogs as standard equipment.

Dogs also have a psychologically soothing potential which I could see being helpful for teams as well.

My first thoughts for breeds are
German Shepherds
Australian Cattle Dog (Again Mad Max's dog)
Belgian Shepherd Malinois
Labrador Retriever

What are your thoughts on this?

[ArmySGT.]

Search and Rescue dogs.... Locate people or cadavers.

Certainly friendly mutts to soothe team nerves and make first contact easier.

Guard dogs to wake the team and keep watch on the camp.

I see more of the Labs, collies, and herding dogs with quite possibly a good number frozen along with Teams.

[stormlion1]

Some of the teams may have had dogs, but I don't see those teams being Recon or Mars teams. They have enough to gear to haul that adding a dog would be straining resources past the breaking point. I could see the project though having dogs set aside for teams to use at the +5 year mark to be given to newly awoken teams but they would be dead and dust at the +150 year mark.

[mmartin798]

There is a problem with keeping live dogs for assignment after wake up. The only place to keep them would be Prime Base. With wake up at the 5 year mark, you would need to train the puppies and that would put an even higher strain on the personnel at PB than a team carting around a trained and frosty pup.

[stormlion1]

Very true, OK I can see Dogs being frozen at Regional Bases, Prime, or even ones dedicated toward animal livestock but still I wouldn't see freezing ones with Mars or Recon Teams. The footprint for care and feeding would be to large for units that are designed to be on the go.

[kato13]

I agree it would be a logistical increase, but dogs have assisted nomadic humans for at least 20,000 years. There must some sort of beneficial tradeoff.

[stormlion1]

Oh there is tons of beneficial trade off like drug sniffer, hunting, watch dog, etc, etc, but it comes at the expanse of room and mission imperative. Sure the workhorse of the project is the V-150 and in a pinch you could squeeze a dog inside but now things are tighter and that's just the dog, not its own supplies which also have to be packed and stored. And Dog Kibble takes up a lot more room than MRE's. I see Dogs being a replacement for a man and his gear or stored for use in a dedicated Bolt Hole until needed. That or expand on a basic teams size and go from one vehicle to two vehicles so the extra gear and the dog have room or go with a larger initial vehicle. Doing this though expands the initial layout of the Bolt Hole making them harder to hide and more expansive to hide.

[kato13]

Understood.

My basic teams are either 2 LAV or 3 HMMWV so we start from completely different places logistically.

[stormlion1]

Most teams from the modules are usually one vehicle or two smaller ones so that's what I plan for. Having more is nice but just adds to maintenance and other issues like the fact there are no roads anymore! It also counts on starting location. Lot easier to move around in the Mojave but what about the team that wakes up in upstate NY? There going to open the Bolt Hole and discover that there are tree's growing right up to the door and the closest 'road' which might be nothing more than a pony track is a mile or two away. The teams are going to spend a lot of time cutting down tree's or looking to abandon there vehicles. I sometimes wonder if it would be better to have Horses in cryosleep than a vehicle stored away for use!

I usually plan for the worst in most scenarios and plan for my local terrain. I live in an area of old tree's with lots of lakes and streams with roads and farmland breaking it all up. And I ask myself if no one was taking care of the roads and the fields, how long till its over run? Then I look at a world war 1 ammo factory called Belcoville and I get my answer. Not long at all.

[kato13]

IMO A single vehicle is a single point of failure. I don't care how low maintenance fusion is supposed to be (i don't use it at the vehicle level anyway), there can still be failures and the team is lost without its vehicle.

I have done calculations for my teams to operate with 3, 2 or 1 HMMWV. The last one is pretty bare bones with half the members riding in a trailer.

I have considered horses and my covert first contact teams may use them.

[stormlion1]

Very true, a team on foot is in trouble but eventually they will be without one. Isn't the fuel supply only good for 18 months? By that point they will need a base of operations and that's when a dog will come in useful and the fact that some team taking care of livestock elsewhere could supply one could come in very useful.
I never like having more than two vehicles myself in a unit and usually not big ones. Hummers usually or maybe a pair of Commando Rangers with some additional armor. The V-150 is too small and heavy but if you take the TOW version and rip out some extra gear to lighten it and make room for more personnel it could be used to carry more people and equipment and yes, the dog with his Kibble and Bits.

[kato13]

Perhaps dogs will be in my "Nesting" caches. That is the suppy cache that is to be used if a team wakes up early or after they have established a base camp as part of the larger project. It complicates things from a power perspective so i need to think about it.

[stormlion1]

The Fuel Supply was designed to be refueled from a larger unit so it is possible I think to have a "second charge" for vehicles located inside a supply cache but it probably would be something more likely found at a regional supply base or with a supply unit. The Recon Teams and Mars Teams were never meant to operate on there own for too long of a term, they eventually were supposed to meet up with other Morrow Teams and work in a concerted effort to rebuild the US. The problem is in the current timeline of 150 years Morrow Teams are operating essentially on there own without the back up they were designed to have. Sure other teams are awake, but unless you can reach them, coordinate with them, and eventually link up with them they might as well be on the moon.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

And Dog Kibble takes up a lot more room than MRE's.

My brain forced me to do the math on this.

Dogfood is actually much more compact.

An active 60lb (27 kg) dog would need 3 cups of premium food a day (~1400 cal). This works out to 1.5 Cubic feet for a 60 day supply.

120 MREs on the other hand would be almost 8 cubic feet (Over 9 if you keep them in cases). This is 2500 calories a day for sixty days. The MREs could be significantly compacted, as that is based on the 120 cubic inch brown bag with lots of air in it. Best case you could get it to 3 or 4 cubic feet, so it still loses on a per calorie (barely) and per day basis.

The fact that the dog food is dehydrated also helps with weight, though it does increase the need for clean water.

[kato13]

I forgot I made an Animal Kit, Dog Handling (Large) a while ago as part of my standard kits.


http://games.juhlin.com/equipment/ki...ml?parent=1145

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

Very true, a team on foot is in trouble but eventually they will be without one. Isn't the fuel supply only good for 18 months?

I can't speak to the 4th edition rules, but in editions 1-3, the vehicle fusion plant has a 20 year fuel supply. It is the portable backpack reactor that has only 18 months. But I usually tone down the vehicle reactor to only 3 years before the reactor needs to be refueled and some maintenance done for normal wear and tear in my games.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

I can't speak to the 4th edition rules, but in editions 1-3, the vehicle fusion plant has a 20 year fuel supply. It is the portable backpack reactor that has only 18 months. But I usually tone down the vehicle reactor to only 3 years before the reactor needs to be refueled and some maintenance done for normal wear and tear in my games.

Fission reactors on naval vessels are good for 10 or more years. Why hobble them this way. Easier to have caches looted by lucky survivors. Tie them down to one area as they try to grow crops and raise livestock to feed themselves. Have people flock to the area because "The Morrow" is there and flood them with refugees with unrealistic expectations.

Back to Dogs. Modern Patrol dogs are not huge beasts. The Belgian Malinois commonly used now (German Shepherds have become unsuitable due to poor breeders habits) isn't huge.

Drug and Search dogs are often small breeds so they can be agile and get into tight spaces.

[stormlion1]

4th edition is stating 18 months showing that Bruce Morrow really expected to be able to refuel all those hungry vehicles after 18 months had passed or expected the teams not to need them anymore.

[welsh]

I love dogs, and I love the dogs featured in the Road Warrior and also the dogs that frequently pop up in Fallout games. I would even say that there is something for training dogs and even breeding dogs, and we might even have room for mutant dogs. White Fang, Call of the Wild- yeah... love dogs.

But does the Project really love dogs so much as to invest in a cryo tube? Given the choice between an adult who, age age 30, has maybe 20-30 years of active service vs a dog of maybe 10 years of more limited service?

I would say, better to have dogs inserted with the team, have the team mean survivors who have trained dogs or breed dogs for certain services.

[kato13]

I have always thought that the limiting factor in the project was not money or resources, but humans.

Finding people who are willing to give up everything on what really could literally be described as a "hunch" seemed like the biggest challenge. That is why I could see cryotubes being used for canine members at the team level.

The agricultural site mentioned in "Fall Back" has lots of animals in tubes IIRC. They also have extra fusion powerplants to be used in surviving agricultural equipment. This reinforces my belief that the project is resource rich, but relatively personnel poor.

[stormlion1]

Also if they teams are getting there pups from a central source like a regional base its possible they could pack more than one dog into a cryotube. Maybe up to three if there small enough.

[welsh]

I stand corrected. Don't have Fallback. Ok, so maybe there is room for the dog in the tube. My MP tends to be a small project and tight in resources, but if you need to substitute, why not. One might also make an argument for a chimp in the tube- but that might be too corny.

[Craig R]

I definitely see a Recon team benefitting from having a master/handler and a dog, such as a Border Collie.

And if the dog and master share a empathic or telepathic bond....

[ArmySGT.]

What about expanding on the Animal Cryotube theme from "Fallback"...

Pack horses. Some locations that are very difficult to traverse still in the modern day are quite manageable by pack horse. The Rocky Mountain West for example, guided hunts on by horse is a thriving industry.

This severely limits the teams fire power and other equipment. Does however completely free their mobility. Down side would be caring for the horses. Hauling grain;grazing horses is fine, but for strenuous activity they need the calories. Caring, is not super difficult but, horseshoes are a must in rocky areas. Then there is how horses react when the shooting starts. I think Cavalry used to have a pistol range beside the horse corral, this desensitized the horse to gunfire.